$500 Bonus Babies

I now see where Congress is considering giving $500 to every baby born. The idea is to start them on a savings account.

That is lovely. Why stop with babies? Why not just give everyone $500, or $1,000 or $1 million? It’s just money, right? If you can give billions to bankers and investment firms, why not babies? Everyone loves babies!

Here is one reason. It’s not like we — that is the US government/taxpayers — have a bunch of loose change lying around just waiting for someone to spend it. We are borrowing money from China and other countries to pay for the financial fiasco the Brainiacs on Wall Street got us into last year, not to mention the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we borrow more money from China (over $3B/yr) to pay people to have babies. Yeah, this is a real good idea. Let’s just give money away — money we don’t have — money we have to borrow, mostly from people who don’t like us and want to own us.

Do you ever get the feeling that your Congressmen are just taking your money, then giving it back to you and making it look like it’s a gift? Hello! It was your money to start with, or China’s or whoever. Actually, when you think about it, it may not be “your money,” depending on who you are. When you consider that roughly half the people in the US don’t pay any income tax to begin with, you can see that “spread the wealth around” idea in play. Take money from those who have more of it and give it to those who have less.

I think a big reason Congress is considering the bill is that as long as they can be seen as giving money to their constituents, they will get votes. How many voters really care where it comes from?

Here is a famous quote from Alexis de Tocquiville to think about.

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”